Amid Escalating Repression, Palestinian Citizens of Israel Refuse to Be Silenced

As images of burned children, starving families, and bombed hospitals in Gaza become the constant soundtrack of daily life, the Palestinian communities that survived the Nakba and stayed in the lands that were occupied by Israel in 1948 (hence called “’48 Palestinians”), are filled with anger, frustration, and a sense of hollowness and disempowerment. Against the general paralysis, Umm al-Fahm, the main Palestinian city in “the Northern Triangle region,” stands out.

Palestinian activists in the town, united around the local “popular committee,” keep trying to break the barriers of repression and fear that have taken hold in their community since October 7. The last attempt was on Saturday, May 24.

The popular committee in Umm al-Fahm called for a national demonstration backed by the Higher Follow-Up Committee of the Arab Public — the united leadership of ’48 Palestinian communities — alongside the Committee for Solidarity with the Administrative Detainee Raja Eghbarieh.

The invitation for the demonstration came under three slogans: “We stand with our people! No to ethnic cleansing and genocide! Freedom to the teacher Raja and all other detainees!”

Even as the demonstration was licensed, the police did not let it end peacefully. As we gathered in Dawar al-‘Uyun, plainclothed “detectives” started to attack demonstrators and tear down some banners that they did not like. I noticed specifically that they objected to such banners as “No to Genocide” and “No to Ethnic Cleansing.”

This practice, where the police decide to censor the banners in a demonstration, is typical of the current blatant hostility of the police under the command of extreme right-wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Even as the demonstrators do not initiate any confrontation, the local police want to prove their militancy to their higher command. They claim that some banners “might disturb public order” and attack the people who carry them.

When we wanted to start marching, the police blocked the road. There were some pushes and shoves, and people began circumventing the police. Finally, the police understood that it would not be simple to stop the demonstration, and “remembered” that our march was originally permitted.

One of the conditions of licensing demonstrations these days is that the Palestinian flag cannot be raised. As we were marching, the police noticed that some demonstrators were holding (not raising) the flags. They broke up the crowd violently and tore them from the hands of those holding them. In the chaos that ensued, they violently arrested a demonstrator.

Umm al-Fahm on the Frontlines

It is no surprise that Umm al-Fahm is where ’48 Palestinians most consistently try to organize protests against the genocide in Gaza. Descending from a long history of struggle, Umm al-Fahm is where Abnaa al-Balad, the radical left Palestinian movement, was born in 1969. The city has also been the center and unassailable fortress of the “Northern” Islamic Movement, which Israel outlawed in 2015. Naji al-Ali, the revolutionary Palestinian cartoonist, once wrote that “Umm al-Fahm is the nom de guerre of Palestine.”

In the early 2020s, ‘48 Palestinian communities were subjected to the terror of extortionist criminal gangs groomed by the Israeli internal intelligence service, the Shabak. The people of Umm al-Fahm responded with a rare example of popular mobilization against organized crime and societal violence in the community. New youth initiatives united with old political leaderships to organize mass demonstrations against the police’s complicity with the criminal gangs. The same “Fahmawi” unified movement reached new peaks during what we call “Habbat al-Karameh,” or the “uprising of dignity” of May 2021, also called the “Unity Intifada.” The mass protest that started with the struggle against ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood quickly developed into a unified struggle across all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea.

The first demonstration of ’48 Palestinians against the genocide in Gaza was held in Umm al-Fahm on October 19, 2023 — we tried the day before in Haifa, but were immediately repressed. The Umm al-Fahm police used this anti-war demonstration to frame two prominent leaders of the youth movement against criminality, Muhammad Taher Jabareen, and the attorney Ahmad Khalifah. They were arrested, tortured, and indicted for “incitement to terrorism.” Ahmad and Muhammad spent four and eight months in prison, respectively, and now remain under partial house arrest while they await sentencing.

The Spirit of Struggle Returns to the Streets

Over the last year and a half, as Israel’s war crimes continue to escalate, the Popular Committee of Umm al-Fahm continues to initiate street protests to try to pull the public out of the state of terror, hoping to turn despair into action. Most of these protests take place, almost weekly, in the central circle near the entrance to the city, in front of the new municipality building. Usually, there are dozens of participants from the city and the surrounding villages.

We have a group of activists in Haifa that keeps trying to demonstrate against the genocide, but we are regularly attacked and dispersed by the police, so we have made a habit of joining the demonstrations in Umm al-Fahm. We meet there with activists from other regions within ‘48, all coming to encourage the most consistent effort at organizing anti-genocide activity by ’48 Palestinians. Some of those who regularly join are radical activists from the Jewish society in Palestine, who are used to volunteering as “human shields” in the West Bank, trying to protect Palestinians against attacks by the occupying army and the settlers.

For more than half a year after October 7, it was totally impossible for Palestinians to receive a license for any kind of anti-war demonstration. As time passed, the Umm al-Fahm popular committee succeeded in getting one, and over the last year, the High Follow-Up Committee held several “national marches” in Umm al-Fahm, in which hundreds of demonstrators participated.

Last January, the Follow-Up Committee wanted to organize a demonstration in Sakhnin, the center of the Galilee, but they could not get a license.

After Israel broke the ceasefire with Gaza with ever more deadly attacks, the Popular Committee decided to move a step further, calling for the next anti-war demo to be held at the entrance of Umm al-Fahm near Route 65, connecting Tel Aviv with the Eastern Galilee. The street, also known as Wadi ‘Ara road, was shut down by Palestinian demonstrators on many important occasions in the past. While shutting down roads is not uncommon in demonstrations in Israel and is usually “contained” by the police, the possibility that Palestinians would engage in such actions is seen by the regime as a “security threat.”

On April 5, instead of the usual dozens who attend most anti-war demonstrations, hundreds gathered near the main road. The police were surprised, declaring that the gathering was illegal, but they did not have the force to disperse it. The main road was not blocked, but it resulted in a tense standoff. It felt like the spirit of struggle had returned to the streets.

After midnight on April 9, Israeli police and the Shabak forces stormed the house of Raja Eghbarieh, 63, the leader of Abnaa al-Balad in Umm al-Fahm, and the most prominent historical leader of that movement. After a week-long interrogation by the Shabak, and after they could not prove any offence, he was transferred to administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial.

At the beginning of the war, hundreds of ’48 Palestinians were arrested. Most of them were charged with “incitement to terror” based on social media posts that were sympathetic to the people of Gaza. As “security prisoners,” they were thrown, together with thousands of their fellow prisoners from the West Bank, to the occupation’s notorious dungeons. At the instruction of the extreme rightwing government and the anti-Palestinian public hysteria, these prisons became ruthless torture centers in a way that is historically unprecedented. While at the beginning of the war, there were many indictments and few administrative detentions in ’48, the Shabak has recently expanded the usage of administrative detention.

For Palestinians from the West Bank, the number of administrative detainees went up from the hundreds to the thousands after October 7. We do not know the real numbers in ‘48 Palestine, as most of the detainees’ families are terrorized into silence and fear that any publicity would invite retribution on their loved ones. Yet the number of known cases continues to increase by the dozen.

The detention of Eghbarieh is considered a significant escalation for ‘48 Palestinians, as it is clearly aimed at the Palestinian political leadership. With his detention, the ghost of administrative detention finally had a name and a face that could be published. This helped to organize the struggle. The demonstrations that followed in Umm al-Fahm were not only against the genocide in Gaza, but also against administrative detention.

The next time that the popular committee called for a demonstration near the Wadi ‘Ara Road on the main entrance to Umm al-Fahm on May 10, the police decided not to let it happen. They threatened the organizers that if they pressed on with the demonstration, every single participant would be arrested. It was clear that this time the police would be there in great force, and the consequences could be severe. The organizers decided to cancel the demonstration at the last minute.

There was another inner circle demonstration on May 17, and then the latest national march on May 24. The confrontation at the May 24 demonstration, which marched as planned despite police provocations and a last-minute attempt to block it, was another step in the consistent efforts to break the silence that has prevented solidarity with Gaza.

Will the Rest of the Country Take Heart?

Alongside the genocide in Gaza and the increasingly violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel has also intensified its policy of demolishing Arab houses, infrastructure, and commercial buildings inside the “Green Line”. Tens of thousands of homes, all over the country, are under demolition orders. In the Naqab, where there are hundreds of unrecognized Palestinian Bedouin “concentrations,” demolition of Palestinian homes is the main priority of the regime, as the police initiate high publicity campaigns to destroy whole villages.

The “war” atmosphere and the general terrorization of the population has impeded resistance to the demolitions. But on Thursday, May 29, there was an unprecedented general strike of the Palestinian population in the Naqab. On the morning of the general strike, thousands gathered in the regional capital of Bir al-Sabe’ for a spirited demonstration in front of the government offices responsible for land confiscation and ethnic cleansing in the region.

On the same night, in the town of Arraba al-Batof at the center of the Galilee, hundreds responded to the call of the local popular committee and gathered to defend the home of one of the residents from a pending demolition. The house was saved, at least for now.

Finally, after a long political and legal struggle, a broad coalition of movements and NGOs, the Communist Party most prominent among them, received a license to march in Haifa against the war for the first time since October 7. The demonstration is set to take place today, May 31, and the organizers expect wide participation.